Family Court Cannot Try Criminal Cases Under IPC: Supreme Court Corrects A ‘Wrong Order’ Passed In Transfer Petition

The Family Court cannot deal with a criminal complaint for various offences under the Indian Penal Code, the Supreme Court remarked while modifying an earlier ‘wrong’ order it had passed in a transfer petition. The court had, earlier this year, allowed a Transfer Petition ‘as prayed for’. But the said prayer sought to transfer criminal case registered under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code (including under Section 498-A IPC) from the Judicial Magistrate Court Thane, Maharashtra, to the Family Court, Vadodara, Gujarat. The Family Judge, Vadodara, Gujarat, on receiving the files, wrote a letter to the Supreme Court Registry and brought this mistake to its notice. Thus the matter was again placed before the Court as a ‘Miscellaneous Application’. “Though..learned counsel for the Respondent contended that it is the petitioner’s own making and that the petitioner made a wrong prayer in the Transfer Petition, I do not think that the operative portion of the order passed in the Transfer Petition can be allowed to stand. The Family Court, as a matter of fact, cannot deal with a criminal complaint for various offences under the IPC. A wrong order of the Court cannot be allowed to stand on the ground that one of the parties invited the same.”, Justice V. Ramasubramanian said.